Chapter 6 - LISA TURNED ON MY FATHER FIRST
By Monday morning, Dad and Lisa were no longer speaking to each other.
The marriage had lasted less than forty-eight hours.
Lisa called me seventeen times.
I ignored every call.
Then she sent a message.
I have information about your father you need to know.
That got my attention.
Mr. Bennett told me not to meet her alone.
So Lisa came to his office.
She arrived without makeup.
No wedding ring.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
“I didn’t forge Evelyn’s signature.”
“No,” I said. “You only witnessed a forged one.”
“I didn’t know it was forged.”
“You signed that you watched her sign it.”
Lisa looked down.
“I know.”
“So you lied.”
“Yes.”
It was the first honest thing I had heard her say.
“Why?”
“Richard told me Evelyn had already agreed to the transfer. He said she was too sick to redo the paperwork and that it was just a technicality.”
I stared at her.
“You believed that?”
She started crying.
“No.”
That answer surprised me.
“I knew something wasn’t right.”
“Then why sign it?”
“Because I wanted the house.”
There it was.
Ugly.
Simple.
True.
Lisa had loved Dad.
But she had also loved the fantasy.
A lake house.
My mother’s home.
Dad’s money.
A life that could begin once Mom was gone.
“I thought Richard was choosing me,” she whispered.
“He was choosing himself.”
Lisa closed her eyes.
“I know that now.”
Then she placed her phone on Mr. Bennett’s desk.
“I kept everything.”
Texts.
Voicemails.
Photographs.
Messages from Dad going back eighteen months.
Mr. Bennett’s expression sharpened.
“Why?”
“At first because I thought they were romantic.”
Then Lisa laughed bitterly.
“Later because I stopped trusting him.”
We opened the messages.
Some were disgusting.
Dad complaining about Mom’s illness.
Dad telling Lisa to “wait until this is over.”
Dad discussing which furniture they would move into Mom’s house.
Then we found one message that made Mr. Bennett sit completely still.
It had been sent four months before Mom died.
Dad wrote:
Once Evelyn signs the beneficiary change, everything becomes easier.
Lisa had replied:
And if she refuses?
Dad’s answer:
Then we deal with that when the time comes.
I felt cold.
Mr. Bennett read the exchange again.
“What beneficiary change?”
Lisa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
But she did know something else.
Dad had taken Mom to an insurance agent twice without telling me.
Mr. Bennett immediately began making calls.
Three hours later, we had an answer.
Nine months before Mom died, a new life insurance policy had been opened.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
Dad was the beneficiary.
But according to the insurer...
Mom had never completed the required medical authorization.
The policy should never have become active.
May you like
Somehow, it had.
And the employee who processed the exception was Dad’s longtime friend.
